Thursday 24 March
OK, so you caught me out. I actually had nothing to do with writing that song I used in my last blog entry. In fact, I was a baby when it was #1 in the charts, and although I’m very clever, and was an extremely clever baby, I still couldn’t write a #1 hit song. So thanks for the use of the lyrics Sir Paul McCartney.
It’s been a whirlwind couple of weeks, but absolutely brilliant. I ended up in London and was going to go to Ireland. I had a ticket to get there, but couldn’t get any accommodation because I’d forgotten it was St. Patrick’s Day over there. I managed to cash in my ticket and ended up going back to Oxford. I had to stick around the UK region because I’d promised my friend Brett I’d go to his band’s gig on the 25th. More on that later.
I chose Oxford because it was on my list of places to go back to if I had the chance. When I was traipsing through the UK in January I only spent an afternoon there because I was on my way to somewhere I thought would be much more exciting. Obviously I was wrong, because I discovered Oxford was the best place in the entire UK. So I headed back for a few days to explore.
Oxford in the 3rd oldest university in Europe, with buildings dating back to the 12th century. It’s absolutely beautiful, and even more so in the springtime. I went for a big walk alongside the canal and decided that if I ever do move the UK it will be to Oxford and I will live in a houseboat. They are the coolest things ever. I even saw one being driven along the canal and watched the process where they lower it into the next part of the canal using floodgate-thingys. So perhaps I don’t know the ins-and-outs and all the technical stuff involved, but it’s pretty darned awesome.
I even got chatted up by a 21-year old Australian guy who was in the same hostel. Kind of flattering, except for the bit where his jaw dropped when I said I was 32. I don’t think he’d ever realised that people could be that old – he certainly was never going to be that old. He spent the rest of the night going round saying “32? 32?” But then he got distracted. There were some Swedish girls staying there and he knew how to say some naughty words in Swedish, so he went to hang out with them. Perhaps not my soul mate
.
On my final day there I got talking to a girl (Australian, not Swedish) at my hostel who had a programme for a folk music festival. I asked her if it was happening at the moment as I figured that would be kind of a cool thing to go to (stop laughing – I’m becoming a big fan of folk music festivals – I’ll tell you why in a minute). She said it was happening the next weekend, but she was coming back because one of her favourite bands were playing. I asked who that was, and she said…The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain.
Well, you know me and ukuleles…(actually, I’m beginning to wonder if I’m developing an unhealthy obsession with the uke…). I got all excited and she got all excited and it turns out that we have heaps in common. Ukuleles, Beatles… She was heading off to Liverpool for the intervening week (oh gee, I wonder why…) and I decided that I had to come back for the festival, so I booked myself a ticket up to Glasgow to return the following weekend.
I went online to check the availability of tickets for the festival and found there was a volunteering form – and the payment for volunteering at the festival was…a free pass to the whole thing. Which meant I could go and see the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain for FREE. If I was accepted as a volunteer.
Glasgow was fantastic. It was sunny the whole time I was there (yes, I know, I was shocked too. I didn’t thing the sun ever reached Scotland). I went up to Kintyre one day, hence the last blog), mucked around for a couple, visiting different parts of the city and went for a day trip to Perth.
Now, Perth is a pretty small town, but nevertheless, it’s still a town. A friend of my mother’s lives there, Christine. She used to live in Mac Bay and I used to babysit her son, Robert (who is now in his final year at university…). Sue had given me Christine’s address before I left NZ, but somewhere along the way I’d lost it. On the bus on the way there I thought to myself “wouldn’t it be funny if I bumped into Christine, ha ha ha”, because, obviously, that was never going to happen.
Except that it did.
I was walking along the banks of the River Tay when I could sort of feel someone beside me. I stopped, turned around and a familiar face in the most incredulous voice imaginable said: “Justine? Justine?” So, yeah, I bumped into Christine. She had seen me and thought I looked like me (funny that) so she started following me (not in a freaky stalker-y kind of way). She was on her way somewhere and I only had a short amount of time in Perth before my bus went back to Glasgow, but we spent about ½ an hour catching up. Funny the way life works!
Back in Glasgow I had an email waiting from the organiser of the folk festival saying that I could indeed a volunteer for the weekend, which meant in exchange for 8 hours of my time, I could have a free ticket.
The festival was brilliant. I ended up only being used for about 5 hours all up, because there simply wasn’t that much to do at the place where I was stationed. I just had to point people in the right direction for things and hand out programmes. Pretty easy!
This was the first folk music festival I’d ever been to, and I’ll definitely be going to more. It was great getting to meet the other volunteers, most of whom almost make a career out of volunteering, going from festival to festival, listening to all their favourite bands for free.
My main focus was the ukulele orchestra, but I discovered SO much new music and so many new bands. You need to google or YouTube these bands, because they’re amazing:
The Dhol Foundation
Lau
Kris Drever (a member of Lau)
Spiers and Boden
Jack Harris
Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain
I even went to an accordion workshop one afternoon. Uh, guess what my next instrument might just have to be? But never fear, I won’t be abandoning the ukulele! Or the flute. Or percussion. Or the violin…
I’m back in London now and am heading off to Belgium tomorrow, en route to Italy. I went to my friend Brett’s gig last night in London, which was great. He plays guitar in a band called Lo Star. Again, YouTube them.
It hit me the other day that I only have three more weeks left in Europe, so I’ll have to get busy to see the places I want to. I really want to see Rome, so I think I’ll base myself there, somehow make my way back to the UK to go to Ireland, try and get to Sheffield to see my friend Kirsty and then back home.
I’m definitely ready to come home – I really want to play some music (flute, perc, uke – don’t care) and I’ve even been having these really disturbing thoughts of wanting to get back into teaching. Bizarre, I know.
It’s also just hit me that throughout these blogs I’ve subjected you to about 10,000 words. That’s nearly half the amount I submitted for my postgrad diploma thesis. Scaryy!! So I apologise for making you read through all my ramblings. (As an aside to you flute-y people – there may be another blog in the making based on different ideas I have re the whole music-making process…watch this space. Well, not actually this space. It’ll be a separate blog).
Alright – see you in Italy!
Justine
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
A Song I Wrote (with a little bit of help from Macca...)
Mull of kintyre
Oh mist rolling in from the sea,
My desire is always to be here
Oh mull of kintyre
Far have I traveled and much have I seen
Dark distant mountains with valleys of green.
Past painted deserts the sunsets on fire
As he carries me home to the mull of kintyre.
Mull of kintyre
Oh mist rolling in from the sea,
My desire is always to be here
Oh mull of kintyre
Sweep through the heather like deer in the glen
Carry me back to the days I knew then.
Nights when we sang like a heavenly choir
Of the life and the time of the mull of kintyre.
Mull of kintyre
Oh mist rolling in from the sea,
My desire is always to be here
Oh mull of kintyre
Smiles in the sunshine
And tears in the rain
Still take me back to where my memories remain
Flickering embers growing higher and higher
As they carry me back to the mull of kintyre
Mull of kintyre
Oh mist rolling in from the sea,
My desire is always to be here
Oh mull of kintyre
Mull of kintyre
Oh mist rolling in from the sea,
My desire is always to be here
Oh mull of kintyre
Monday, March 16, 2009
Bucharest, Belgrade, Vienna, Salzburg, Krakow to London
Wednesday 11 March
Well, I think I’ve recovered sufficiently from my trip to the opera to continue with my blog. I’m writing this from London – it’s been a bit of a whirlwind tour from Budapest til now. From Budapest, Hungary I went to Bucharest, Romania. My main reason for going to both these places is that in my mind I constantly get them mixed up. And I’m not the only one. In 1992 Michael Jackson, yes he who dangled his baby Blanket out a window (in Berlin – I have a photo somewhere of that same window), stood upon the balcony of the People’s Parliament in Bucharest, the first person to address the people since Nicolae Ceausescu and greeted everyone: “Hello Budapest”. So even the Prince of Pop can get it wrong.
Bucharest was okay – Romania’s a very poor country and it doesn’t always feel the safest. I made sure my bag was held tight, and were warned in the hostel not to go out at night. But, the highlight for me was after going for a wander round the city (in the daytime of course) was discovering that just around the corner from my hostel was the Bucharest Music Academy and there was a concert there in 5 minutes time and…it was free. It was the end of term recital for two of the violin students and was being recorded for Romanian TV. The camera often panned around to the audience, so I could very well have made my Romanian TV debut. Awesome!
From Romania I took the overnight train to Belgrade. This was a bit of a disaster couple of days. The train was horrible – it smelled like a toilet, the toilet was worse – it smelled like a…well, something amazingly gross anyway.
I get to my hostel in Belgrade, to find out that I’m at the wrong hostel. I get to the right hostel only to find that they are full, despite me having booked a room days ago. They refund my deposit and book me into an alternative hostel – the one I went to in the first place.
Anyway…
I quite liked Belgrade. Again, like Romania it’s very poor, but the city felt familiar to me. Well, sort of. My map-reading skills had improved dramatically, but I still managed to get lost in Belgrade because all the street signs use the Cyrillic alphabet, not the Roman alphabet we use. I kept walking south-east, knowing that was the direction of my hostel. Unfortunately I hadn’t counted on the six land motorway with its myriad of over and underpasses. Eventually I asked in a shop, the girl said hop on the Number 9 tram and you’ll get there, and, hey presto, I did. I was actually pretty close to my hostel, it was just the motorway was in my way.
I only had one afternoon in Belgrade before catching the early train to Vienna. This was so exciting. Vienna has been at the top of my travel list since 1995 when I first saw the film “Before Sunrise”. The Vienna of “Before Sunrise” was a bit different from my Vienna though. In the movie it’s the middle of a hot summer. I was there in the middle of a cold, wet winter, but it’s still an amazing city.
The first thing I noticed was the number of fake Mozarts walking round, trying to get you to go to a Mozart/Strauss concert. Mozart? Yes, I could handle that. But Strauss? Whatever. Not wanting to influence your musical tastes or anything, but seriously? Strauss? There’s no member of the Strauss family I’d pay to go hear their music, so I went to the Vienna Symphony to hear Debussy, Ravel and Zemlinsky. Much better.
In Vienna there’s a museum called the House of Music which is an interactive display looking at all the facets of music-making. My two favourites were the roll-the-dice compose a Viennese waltz and the chance to conduct the (digitised) Vienna Philharmonic!
It was also in Vienna where I discovered two ‘new’ (i.e. new to me) artists – Egon Shiele and Gustav Klimt. Klimt in particular is an amazing painter, with very complex geometric designs, almost mosaic-like, in his work.
From Vienna I took a day trip to Salzburg, a beautiful – if over-Mozartised – city. Salzburg is famous for two things: Mozart’s birthplace and the Sound of Music. Fighting the urge to turn the curtains into lederhosen, I focussed on the Mozart aspects (though giving a wide berth to the Mozart chocolates, Mozart perfume and, uh, Mozart/disco CDs).
After Vienna/Salzburg I took another early train back to Krakow (Poland). I had spent a few days there some weeks ago, but Nigel Kennedy was playing so I HAD to go back.
For those of you in the dark, let me shed some illumination on the subject of Nigel Kennedy. He’s an English violinist who now lives in Poland. He is one of the most talented musicians of our era, if a somewhat controversial figure. He shot to world-wide fame in 1988/89 with his groundbreaking recording of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” (Come on Kiwis, get some Viv – remember the ad?). Many of his critics don’t like the way he talks, dresses or behaves. And maybe some of that is justified (apparently when in New Zealand in 1996 he flooded his hotel room in Christchurch, letting the hot water run to create the correct level of humidity for his violin…), but musically, I think he’s brilliant (maybe except for his cadenza in the Beethoven violin concerto. This is the example I play for all you flutey-types of what not to do – Jimi Hendrix and Beethoven don’t actually mix that well…) but I just love his attitude and the way he performs.
So you can probably guess just how EXCITED I was to be going to his concert. He was performing with a quartet (Hammond organ, guitar, bass, drums), playing Jimi Hendrix, but with his own twist and loads of improvised passages. SO COOL. If you ever get the chance to see Nigel Kennedy perform, you must go.
And now – I’m in London. Mostly for practical reasons. Kate’s moving out of her flat because she’s about to go travelling and I’ve got piles (and piles…) of sheet music etc at her place, so I have to pack that up and store it at another friend’s place. So I’ll do that, then on Saturday I head over to Ireland for a week, back to London to catch a gig by a friend’s band, then off to Italy…
Will keep you posted
Well, I think I’ve recovered sufficiently from my trip to the opera to continue with my blog. I’m writing this from London – it’s been a bit of a whirlwind tour from Budapest til now. From Budapest, Hungary I went to Bucharest, Romania. My main reason for going to both these places is that in my mind I constantly get them mixed up. And I’m not the only one. In 1992 Michael Jackson, yes he who dangled his baby Blanket out a window (in Berlin – I have a photo somewhere of that same window), stood upon the balcony of the People’s Parliament in Bucharest, the first person to address the people since Nicolae Ceausescu and greeted everyone: “Hello Budapest”. So even the Prince of Pop can get it wrong.
Bucharest was okay – Romania’s a very poor country and it doesn’t always feel the safest. I made sure my bag was held tight, and were warned in the hostel not to go out at night. But, the highlight for me was after going for a wander round the city (in the daytime of course) was discovering that just around the corner from my hostel was the Bucharest Music Academy and there was a concert there in 5 minutes time and…it was free. It was the end of term recital for two of the violin students and was being recorded for Romanian TV. The camera often panned around to the audience, so I could very well have made my Romanian TV debut. Awesome!
From Romania I took the overnight train to Belgrade. This was a bit of a disaster couple of days. The train was horrible – it smelled like a toilet, the toilet was worse – it smelled like a…well, something amazingly gross anyway.
I get to my hostel in Belgrade, to find out that I’m at the wrong hostel. I get to the right hostel only to find that they are full, despite me having booked a room days ago. They refund my deposit and book me into an alternative hostel – the one I went to in the first place.
Anyway…
I quite liked Belgrade. Again, like Romania it’s very poor, but the city felt familiar to me. Well, sort of. My map-reading skills had improved dramatically, but I still managed to get lost in Belgrade because all the street signs use the Cyrillic alphabet, not the Roman alphabet we use. I kept walking south-east, knowing that was the direction of my hostel. Unfortunately I hadn’t counted on the six land motorway with its myriad of over and underpasses. Eventually I asked in a shop, the girl said hop on the Number 9 tram and you’ll get there, and, hey presto, I did. I was actually pretty close to my hostel, it was just the motorway was in my way.
I only had one afternoon in Belgrade before catching the early train to Vienna. This was so exciting. Vienna has been at the top of my travel list since 1995 when I first saw the film “Before Sunrise”. The Vienna of “Before Sunrise” was a bit different from my Vienna though. In the movie it’s the middle of a hot summer. I was there in the middle of a cold, wet winter, but it’s still an amazing city.
The first thing I noticed was the number of fake Mozarts walking round, trying to get you to go to a Mozart/Strauss concert. Mozart? Yes, I could handle that. But Strauss? Whatever. Not wanting to influence your musical tastes or anything, but seriously? Strauss? There’s no member of the Strauss family I’d pay to go hear their music, so I went to the Vienna Symphony to hear Debussy, Ravel and Zemlinsky. Much better.
In Vienna there’s a museum called the House of Music which is an interactive display looking at all the facets of music-making. My two favourites were the roll-the-dice compose a Viennese waltz and the chance to conduct the (digitised) Vienna Philharmonic!
It was also in Vienna where I discovered two ‘new’ (i.e. new to me) artists – Egon Shiele and Gustav Klimt. Klimt in particular is an amazing painter, with very complex geometric designs, almost mosaic-like, in his work.
From Vienna I took a day trip to Salzburg, a beautiful – if over-Mozartised – city. Salzburg is famous for two things: Mozart’s birthplace and the Sound of Music. Fighting the urge to turn the curtains into lederhosen, I focussed on the Mozart aspects (though giving a wide berth to the Mozart chocolates, Mozart perfume and, uh, Mozart/disco CDs).
After Vienna/Salzburg I took another early train back to Krakow (Poland). I had spent a few days there some weeks ago, but Nigel Kennedy was playing so I HAD to go back.
For those of you in the dark, let me shed some illumination on the subject of Nigel Kennedy. He’s an English violinist who now lives in Poland. He is one of the most talented musicians of our era, if a somewhat controversial figure. He shot to world-wide fame in 1988/89 with his groundbreaking recording of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” (Come on Kiwis, get some Viv – remember the ad?). Many of his critics don’t like the way he talks, dresses or behaves. And maybe some of that is justified (apparently when in New Zealand in 1996 he flooded his hotel room in Christchurch, letting the hot water run to create the correct level of humidity for his violin…), but musically, I think he’s brilliant (maybe except for his cadenza in the Beethoven violin concerto. This is the example I play for all you flutey-types of what not to do – Jimi Hendrix and Beethoven don’t actually mix that well…) but I just love his attitude and the way he performs.
So you can probably guess just how EXCITED I was to be going to his concert. He was performing with a quartet (Hammond organ, guitar, bass, drums), playing Jimi Hendrix, but with his own twist and loads of improvised passages. SO COOL. If you ever get the chance to see Nigel Kennedy perform, you must go.
And now – I’m in London. Mostly for practical reasons. Kate’s moving out of her flat because she’s about to go travelling and I’ve got piles (and piles…) of sheet music etc at her place, so I have to pack that up and store it at another friend’s place. So I’ll do that, then on Saturday I head over to Ireland for a week, back to London to catch a gig by a friend’s band, then off to Italy…
Will keep you posted
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Justine Goes to the Opera
Monday 02 March
This is the story of a music-maker/music-teacher/music-lover and her attempt at unfathoming the murky depths of Hungarian opera. Let’s call her Justine.
Justine was on one of those touristy hop on – hop off buses in Budapest, Hungary. As the bus went past the National Opera House, Justine saw a sign saying “Barber of Seville”. Assuming that meant that Rossini’s opera, “The Barber of Seville” was being performed at the Opera House, Justine went back after the bus tour to buy a ticket.
The following is an account of what happened next:
Fortunately: Justine manages to find the right metro stop to the Opera House.
Unfortunately: Justine goes to the wrong door.
Fortunately: Justine finds the right door.
Unfortunately: Justine doesn’t know how to ask for a ticket to “The Barber of Seville” in Hungarian.
Fortunately: The ticket-seller speaks English.
Unfortunately: “The Barber of Seville” isn’t on that night.
Fortunately: “Eugen Onegin”, the opera by Tchaikovsky is on. Justine buys a ticket and enters the theatre.
Unfortunately: Justine goes the wrong way into the theatre and instead of finding herself in the main auditorium, she finds herself upstairs in the private boxes. Justine finds herself shoo-ed away by a grumpy usher.
Fortunately: Justine finds a nice usher and her correct seat.
Unfortunately: Justine’s seat is behind the man who has the biggest head in the world.
Fortunately: Justine can see some spare seats. She decides to move as soon as the house lights go down.
Unfortunately: The spare seats fill up.
Fortunately: The orchestra starts tuning, the house lights dim, the conductor enters, the curtain rises. Justine settles down to watch the opera.
Unfortunately: Justine realises she doesn’t know what the opera is about. She meant to google it, but forgot.
Fortunately: Justine figures she’s smart. How hard can it be?
Unfortunately: The singing starts. It’s in Russian.
Fortunately: There are subtitles.
Unfortunately: The subtitles are in Hungarian.
Fortunately: Justine has learned some Hungarian.
Unfortunately: The words for ‘hello’, ‘goodbye’, ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ are hardly likely to be in the opera. At least not so much as to aid understanding of the plot.
Fortunately: There are lots of pretty lights, an intriguing set and male chorus members with no shirts to keep Justine distracted.
However, they don’t distract Justine for long. Soon after curtain up, Justine starts wondering about the plot of “Eugen Onegin”. The following are the key points from the opera as understood by Justine (it may hold true for other productions of the same opera, I don’t know).
Act I:
Lady in White and Lady in Red float through the air singing, while two other ladies in red throw something into a tub (laundry/grapes/dirt?).
The chorus enters, wearing green, performing a Balkan version of the box-step. The men look highly uncomfortable. The chorus leaves.
Amid the excitement of the Balkan box-step the bassoons forget the importance of intonation.
The man in front of Justine (the one with the unusually large head) keeps moving. Justine considers decapitation.
Two men enter, stage left. Both look like a Miami Vice-era Don Johnson. One is wearing white. One is wearing red.
The men sing with their corresponding colour-coded ladies. Lady in Red and Man in Red sing to each other. Lady in White and Man in White ignore each other.
The man sitting next to Justine falls asleep and starts to snore. Justine considers kicking him.
Men in Red and White leave the stage. Lady in White has argument with dirt throwing lady in red.
Beautiful oboe solo.
Lady in White keeps singing. Justine wonders if she’s going to let anyone else have a turn.
Man in White enters. They kiss while twirling across the stage. Justine’s level of excitement picks up as she wonders if they’ll fall off.
They don’t. Justine experiences mild feeling of disappointment.
Man in White leaves.
The snoring man wakes up. Looks at his watch. He will continue to do this at a regular interval until the interval.
Lady in White rushes around the stage waving a long black cloak. Perhaps symbolising light/dark, good/evil, pure/impure, confusion/utter bewilderment. Oh no, that last one’s Justine.
Lady in White keeps singing, then jumps off the stage, covering herself in the black cloak.
Audience starts applauding, thinking it’s the interval. They’ve been thinking about getting an icecream for the last 20 minutes.
Lady in White comes back on stage and keeps on singing. An old man a few rows ahead of Justine leaves anyway. “Bugger this”, he’s thinking. “I want my icecream”.
Lady in White is still singing. The women of the chorus come on and perform a complicated Tyrolean folk dance while pelting the Lady in White with Malteasers.
Justine is confused. And judging by the fidgeting, whispering and coughing, so is the rest of the audience.
The men of the chorus enter and pelt the Lady in White with Malteasers.
CURTAIN
During the interval Justine ponders the significance of the colour scheme. What does it represent? Hungary? No, that would be too easy. Mexico? Candy canes?
Act II – highlights:
Begins with a famous tune. Finally.
The chorus are now in red. They look like red blood cells in a bad biology video.
The Lady in White is now the Lady in Green. The Man in White looks like John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever”.
The Man in White dances with the Lady in Red (who has exchanged her red PVC dress of Act I for a funky red ensemble including fur leg-warmers). They run away together.
A Man in Black enters and offers the Lady in Green a black rose. She just stands there. He then runs away.
Someone behind Justine unwraps a lolly. Justine thinks of Jared and considers punching said patron. Justine is developing “opera rage”.
Chorus performs the Balkan box-step combined with that game we used to play as kids: “wash the dishes, dry the dishes, turn the dishes over”.
The dirt throwing lady in red comes out with a birthday cake.
The trumpets momentarily forget the key signature. The man beside Justine is awake again.
Glitter falls on the Man in Red.
Justine can’t see what happens next because of the enlarged cranium in front of her. But she does glean from the subtitles that the Man in White says ‘no’.
The orchestra starts to get agitated. Something’s about to happen. The brass play a loud bit (I bet they’ve been saving that up all night).
The Man in White shoots the Man in Red.
CURTAIN
During this interval Justine reflects on the wisdom of attending such events whilst backpacking. Looking at the other members of the audience, Justine is easily the worst dressed person in the auditorium. She looks like a hobo. And, after a day’s sight-seeing without returning to her hostel for a shower, Justine also smells like a hobo.
Act III (highlights):
The chorus are now in sparkly gold outfits. The men, in particular, look they were dressed by C3PO.
The chorus do a dance. One man goes the wrong way. Great chaos ensues on stage. Great hilarity for the audience.
The Man in White suddenly appears in the middle of the dancers. As does the two dirt-throwing ladies, the rose-giving Man in Black, the Lady in Red and the Man in Red. Justine is confused. Didn’t he die?
The Lady in Green is now the Lady in Black. She enters with an Old Man in White. He looks very familiar to Justine. Justine suddenly craves KFC.
Colonel Sanders sings a famous aria. It has the word ‘no’ in to. Also ‘yes’.
The man beside Justine starts snoring again. This time, loudly. People from two rows in front turn around.
Lady in Black mopes a bit. Sings. Man in White comes back. They sing together. They fall to their knees. Still singing. All very passionate.
Man in White dies.
A light from the set falls down and starts swinging. Justine isn’t sure if this is intentional.
CURTAIN
This is the story of a music-maker/music-teacher/music-lover and her attempt at unfathoming the murky depths of Hungarian opera. Let’s call her Justine.
Justine was on one of those touristy hop on – hop off buses in Budapest, Hungary. As the bus went past the National Opera House, Justine saw a sign saying “Barber of Seville”. Assuming that meant that Rossini’s opera, “The Barber of Seville” was being performed at the Opera House, Justine went back after the bus tour to buy a ticket.
The following is an account of what happened next:
Fortunately: Justine manages to find the right metro stop to the Opera House.
Unfortunately: Justine goes to the wrong door.
Fortunately: Justine finds the right door.
Unfortunately: Justine doesn’t know how to ask for a ticket to “The Barber of Seville” in Hungarian.
Fortunately: The ticket-seller speaks English.
Unfortunately: “The Barber of Seville” isn’t on that night.
Fortunately: “Eugen Onegin”, the opera by Tchaikovsky is on. Justine buys a ticket and enters the theatre.
Unfortunately: Justine goes the wrong way into the theatre and instead of finding herself in the main auditorium, she finds herself upstairs in the private boxes. Justine finds herself shoo-ed away by a grumpy usher.
Fortunately: Justine finds a nice usher and her correct seat.
Unfortunately: Justine’s seat is behind the man who has the biggest head in the world.
Fortunately: Justine can see some spare seats. She decides to move as soon as the house lights go down.
Unfortunately: The spare seats fill up.
Fortunately: The orchestra starts tuning, the house lights dim, the conductor enters, the curtain rises. Justine settles down to watch the opera.
Unfortunately: Justine realises she doesn’t know what the opera is about. She meant to google it, but forgot.
Fortunately: Justine figures she’s smart. How hard can it be?
Unfortunately: The singing starts. It’s in Russian.
Fortunately: There are subtitles.
Unfortunately: The subtitles are in Hungarian.
Fortunately: Justine has learned some Hungarian.
Unfortunately: The words for ‘hello’, ‘goodbye’, ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ are hardly likely to be in the opera. At least not so much as to aid understanding of the plot.
Fortunately: There are lots of pretty lights, an intriguing set and male chorus members with no shirts to keep Justine distracted.
However, they don’t distract Justine for long. Soon after curtain up, Justine starts wondering about the plot of “Eugen Onegin”. The following are the key points from the opera as understood by Justine (it may hold true for other productions of the same opera, I don’t know).
Act I:
Lady in White and Lady in Red float through the air singing, while two other ladies in red throw something into a tub (laundry/grapes/dirt?).
The chorus enters, wearing green, performing a Balkan version of the box-step. The men look highly uncomfortable. The chorus leaves.
Amid the excitement of the Balkan box-step the bassoons forget the importance of intonation.
The man in front of Justine (the one with the unusually large head) keeps moving. Justine considers decapitation.
Two men enter, stage left. Both look like a Miami Vice-era Don Johnson. One is wearing white. One is wearing red.
The men sing with their corresponding colour-coded ladies. Lady in Red and Man in Red sing to each other. Lady in White and Man in White ignore each other.
The man sitting next to Justine falls asleep and starts to snore. Justine considers kicking him.
Men in Red and White leave the stage. Lady in White has argument with dirt throwing lady in red.
Beautiful oboe solo.
Lady in White keeps singing. Justine wonders if she’s going to let anyone else have a turn.
Man in White enters. They kiss while twirling across the stage. Justine’s level of excitement picks up as she wonders if they’ll fall off.
They don’t. Justine experiences mild feeling of disappointment.
Man in White leaves.
The snoring man wakes up. Looks at his watch. He will continue to do this at a regular interval until the interval.
Lady in White rushes around the stage waving a long black cloak. Perhaps symbolising light/dark, good/evil, pure/impure, confusion/utter bewilderment. Oh no, that last one’s Justine.
Lady in White keeps singing, then jumps off the stage, covering herself in the black cloak.
Audience starts applauding, thinking it’s the interval. They’ve been thinking about getting an icecream for the last 20 minutes.
Lady in White comes back on stage and keeps on singing. An old man a few rows ahead of Justine leaves anyway. “Bugger this”, he’s thinking. “I want my icecream”.
Lady in White is still singing. The women of the chorus come on and perform a complicated Tyrolean folk dance while pelting the Lady in White with Malteasers.
Justine is confused. And judging by the fidgeting, whispering and coughing, so is the rest of the audience.
The men of the chorus enter and pelt the Lady in White with Malteasers.
CURTAIN
During the interval Justine ponders the significance of the colour scheme. What does it represent? Hungary? No, that would be too easy. Mexico? Candy canes?
Act II – highlights:
Begins with a famous tune. Finally.
The chorus are now in red. They look like red blood cells in a bad biology video.
The Lady in White is now the Lady in Green. The Man in White looks like John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever”.
The Man in White dances with the Lady in Red (who has exchanged her red PVC dress of Act I for a funky red ensemble including fur leg-warmers). They run away together.
A Man in Black enters and offers the Lady in Green a black rose. She just stands there. He then runs away.
Someone behind Justine unwraps a lolly. Justine thinks of Jared and considers punching said patron. Justine is developing “opera rage”.
Chorus performs the Balkan box-step combined with that game we used to play as kids: “wash the dishes, dry the dishes, turn the dishes over”.
The dirt throwing lady in red comes out with a birthday cake.
The trumpets momentarily forget the key signature. The man beside Justine is awake again.
Glitter falls on the Man in Red.
Justine can’t see what happens next because of the enlarged cranium in front of her. But she does glean from the subtitles that the Man in White says ‘no’.
The orchestra starts to get agitated. Something’s about to happen. The brass play a loud bit (I bet they’ve been saving that up all night).
The Man in White shoots the Man in Red.
CURTAIN
During this interval Justine reflects on the wisdom of attending such events whilst backpacking. Looking at the other members of the audience, Justine is easily the worst dressed person in the auditorium. She looks like a hobo. And, after a day’s sight-seeing without returning to her hostel for a shower, Justine also smells like a hobo.
Act III (highlights):
The chorus are now in sparkly gold outfits. The men, in particular, look they were dressed by C3PO.
The chorus do a dance. One man goes the wrong way. Great chaos ensues on stage. Great hilarity for the audience.
The Man in White suddenly appears in the middle of the dancers. As does the two dirt-throwing ladies, the rose-giving Man in Black, the Lady in Red and the Man in Red. Justine is confused. Didn’t he die?
The Lady in Green is now the Lady in Black. She enters with an Old Man in White. He looks very familiar to Justine. Justine suddenly craves KFC.
Colonel Sanders sings a famous aria. It has the word ‘no’ in to. Also ‘yes’.
The man beside Justine starts snoring again. This time, loudly. People from two rows in front turn around.
Lady in Black mopes a bit. Sings. Man in White comes back. They sing together. They fall to their knees. Still singing. All very passionate.
Man in White dies.
A light from the set falls down and starts swinging. Justine isn’t sure if this is intentional.
CURTAIN
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